I wrote this years ago, but someone said something to me today that triggered all of this back. Can I possibly have *at age 30* deep-rooted insecurities that stem from middle school? Apparently so. And I'll tell you, they hurt as much as they did then.
In a way, I think my self-esteem still has the maturity of an 11-year-old. It's like I never grew out of it, or never grew up. Anyway, for what it's worth, here it is.
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Last night I was invited to my coworker's daughter Lindsay's drill team performance. It's where the kids perform choreographies and stuff like that. Lindsay is eleven.

As soon as we stepped out on the parking lot and started seeing the kids, my mind kind of threw me for a loop and I was flashbacked into my own sixth grade experience.

We entered the gym, and it became impossible not to compare it to my own gym at Rosemont Middle School (yes, I used to live in Texas!). I watched the kids and I immediately recognized the eternal stereo-types: the shy, slightly overweight kids, always tugging at their shirts, afraid that someone will see their tummies and make fun of them...the popular kids, with that mysterious confidence and self-assurance...the premature dressers - the girls who dress and try to act like they're in their twenties.

We sat on the floor because the bleachers were full. Lindsay’s cousins were there (the ones who helped me at the office the other day) and they all sat - huddled around me.

And then the dancing started and I was horrified.

I suddenly heard myself speaking phrases such as, "Aren't their shirts too short/tight/revealing?,” or “Isn’t that dance a little provocative/sexy?.” I was shocked to hear the girls’ screams when the boys’ team got up to dance. Isn’t this a little premature? Aren’t the parents shocked too? Mmm?!

But then I remembered.

My first “grown-up” crush happened exactly at this age: eleven.

His name was Ruben, and he was one year older than I. He was Hispanic, just like me, although I am the Argentine-Irish type, which places me in a rare minority group consisting of 100 other people at the most ; ). But, anyway. Ruben.

Ruben went to my school, and his family was friends with mine.
He was sort of a bad boy. He liked to say inappropriate things; he liked to walk the fine line. He was a jock, he was popular, he was cute (or at least, back then, we all thought he was).



And I, well, I was the innocent kid. I was the product of a highly conservative upbringing. I was smart when it came to school or abstract subjects, but completely clueless when it came to dealing with other kids my age. Being cool, knowing what to say… hmmm, not my forte. Whatsoever. I was artsy, spent my spare time drawing, painting, or reading. I also liked to record myself singing on RadioShack tapes so that I could listen to myself and harmonize. I rode a bike that had cost ten dollars at a garage sale, and it had flat tires. I fell just about every time I rode it, but I insisted. I was not an athlete at school, or popular. I was a band kid. I played the flute (which wasn’t exactly a passport to stardom).

In spite of my not-so-attractive qualities, Ruben seemed to enjoy flirting with me. Being the minister’s daughter always gave me special status with the boys. There always seemed to be a fascination with flirting with the daughter of “the man in charge.” It wasn’t me at all that they liked. They just liked my role, and I liked the “thrill of danger.”

I wasn’t particularly pretty or anything. The year was 1987, and I had horrible fashion sense, even for the eighties. I was totally clueless about clothes. I remember wearing tiny little belts over and around huge, untucked shirts. As if this hadn’t been enough of a fashion faux pais, I was blissfully unaware of the fact that I had no waist, so I was actually only making it worse. I also had a thing for floral prints. Huge floral prints. I had a “matching” (cough, cough) outfit: a floral print sweatshirt and floral-print skirt. I was particularly proud of this duo because I’d managed to acquire the pieces separately, one at a garage sale and one at a give-away, and still they had the same exact print. They matched perfectly. In hindsight, I realize that they had the same exact HIDEOUS print.

My hair was also quite hideous. I had (and still do, but now I can cover it up better) a natural afro. Ever since I’ve had hair, it has been of the curly – extremely curly – persuasion. And try as I may, it has this kink to it that refuses to go away. A mind of its own is what it has. Nowadays I just pull it back and try to forget about it, but back then, “conditioner” was a foreign term to me, so I had a true afro. I really, really did. And pulling my hair back was a happy thought that never popped into my head.

You’d think that the afro was bad enough, but no, I had to do something to make the situation even more serious: I cut my own bangs. Now, if you have curly hair, you know you’re not supposed to have bangs, unless you have the time to straighten them every morning. Well, I didn’t know that.

So one day, I walked out of the shower, looked at myself in the mirror, said to myself: “I have a huge forehead!” and decided that cutting bangs in my hair was the way to go. And cut them I did, only I did it with little kid scissors, so I ran out of blade half-way through, and had to grab another few strands of hair after the first incision. Which meant that when it was all said and done, I had two masses of hair, each of a different length, preceding my face. One could safely say that my bangs probably arrived at school 15 minutes before my face did, they were so big. And they looked like bushes. Like some landscaping architect had cut my hair. You could also say that I looked like a poodle. A black one. Make sure you click on the link to "a poodle" to get a proper mental image.

Oh, yeah, and I also had braces.



And this, my friends, was the little girl who liked Ruben, the bad, the handsome, the popular kid.

I liked him as intensely as any eleven-year-old likes her first “real” crush. I would pass him on the way to my locker between periods and my heart would skip a beat and I’d get butterflies in my stomach. I’d write about him in my little journals. I’d imagine a thousand scenarios of how he would Declare His Undying Love For Me. All of this based on movies or TV shows. None of it was based on personal experience. I had none.


At school, he barely acknowledged my existence. I guess I wasn’t cool or pretty enough for him there, where he had plenty of other girls to choose from. But at church, well, church was a whole different story.

Church offered pretty slim pickins. And I was, like I said, the pastor’s daughter, so I had at least that going for me. I also had a pretty sharp tongue. And still do. So I spoke my mind at any given time, whether it was the right thing to do or not. Most boys were intimidated by that, but Ruben liked it. He thought I was mean and sarcastic. And I rose to the occasion. “You like mean and sarcastic?,” well, then, watch me soar, because, boy o boy, I can be mean and sarcastic.

He pursued me at church, and I, being the clueless little thing that I was, had no idea how to deal with it. Most of the time I pulled the “I hate you so much” act, which I thought was pretty classy. You know, play hard to get. Act like you think he sucks. That’ll get you far ; )

I think he enjoyed the idea of turning me into a “bad girl” or something. Like, you know, in Footloose. And I, every time I talked to or “flirted” with him, felt on the verge of turning into a really wild girl. One of those girls who Talked To Boys.

My transformation into “bad girl” came one day when I was at school, sitting on the bleachers, absorbed by my own little thoughts, oblivious to anything going on around me, waiting for our P.E. teacher to arrive so class could start.

I was thinking about Ruben, as I usually did, but this time I blushed, and felt my cheeks burn. I blushed because I suddenly realized that I wanted him to kiss me, and this hit me like a ton of bricks. Me, wanting to be kissed? Certainly I was too young, too immature! I felt almost guilty for having this natural physical reaction to the boy I liked. Remember, I was the kind of kid who grew up never talking about stuff like that in my house. I was almost horrified, but I also had this dawning realization of what people were talking about when they talked about wanting to kiss someone. Now I knew.

From then on, I walked on eggshells around him, feeling like I was this bad person because I’d thought about him kissing me. Where before I had flirted and “argued” with him, I now froze in horrified silence. I couldn’t even look him in the eye.

And then it happened: Ruben’s younger brother Sammy broke his arm one Sunday night at church, and, surprise, surprise, my mom offered to go to the hospital with his mom. And, Ruben and I had to be taken along. After all, we were just kids.

So there we were, in the hospital, and it was night, and our mothers were too busy talking to the doctor to notice what we were doing.

He and I went to the hospital’s cafeteria, and we had some Coke or something. We talked about "things," and I remember feeling so grown-up, like, “This is what normal people do on dates.” I talked to him like a real person for the first time, and it felt weird, because my guard was down, and I felt like I was talking to a real boy too, without the trappings of the “hard-to-get” crap I pulled or the “I’m too good for you” stunt he pulled on me at school.

Then we went to the waiting room, and sat there for a long time. His face was pretty close to mine, and I got to look at his facial features, which I had never been able to do from such a close distance. I could see his eyelashes, and his nose, and his mouth, and this was all very new to me. This was a real person. It’s hard to explain why this was such an awakening experience for me. I guess it was because I’d liked him in my head for so long, and for once, I felt like I could like him in reality. It was a privilege I'd never expected to enjoy... this thing of being treated like a normal girl.

Our shoulders were touching and I remember wishing he would put his arm around my shoulders. I never imagined anything bad – it was actually all very innocent and sweet. I remember thinking for the first time in my life, as I saw the little sparkle in his eyes when he talked to me, that it was possible for a boy to like me.

Suddenly I felt pretty and likeable, which was totally new for me. I thought, “So this isn’t so hard after all: I just have to be myself.” He kept looking at me, holding my gaze instead of glancing away, and I thought I’d die. He was looking at me and didn’t seem to notice the poodle-like hair, or the braces, or the flower print (if I happened to be wearing it).

We talked and we laughed and then suddenly remembered Sammy’s “serious condition” and felt guilty for having such a good time. So, to make up for it, we talked intensely about how serious his condition was, and how his arm might be injured beyond repair. We shook our heads and bemoaned the state of things. You know, the drama.

The night eventually - quite obviously - had to come to an end. I remember sitting in the back seat as we drove home, both of us in the back seat, our little brothers also there but asleep. My window was rolled down and I remember closing my eyes and feeling the summer breeze and thinking, “I will never forget this night.”

Monday morning came. Just a few hours after “everything” had happened. I was on cloud nine, thinking he liked me, and I liked him, and oh-my-gosh, we were probably gonna get married. The search was over. I’d found “the one.” ; )

So I got ready for school in a flurry of thoughts, excited beyond description, waiting eagerly to see him in the hall, on the way to my locker. What would happen??? Would he look at me and smile a “knowing smile,” the kind that would let me know he felt the same way? Would he wink at me? Would he turn to look at me once I passed him?

The bell rang and I rushed down the hall. At first I didn’t see him, but then I did, and my heart did its usual skip and the butterflies tickled my stomach. But then all of the nice sensations were surpassed by a sinking sensation when I saw that he wasn’t alone. He was holding the hand of a blonde, silky-haired, perfect-bangs girl. She was tall and lanky and pale. She was well-dressed, and had a little purse in her hand, the kind of purse that all girls had in the late 80’s.

All girls except for me. I had a bag I’d bought at my neighbor’s garage sale. It had a rainbow on it and it said, “This is my favourite rainbow, I carry it wherever I go.” So, yeah, it was dorky, but I liked it, and I continued to take it to school even though kids had told me it wasn’t cool. But what can I say? It cheered me up.

So there I stood, by my locker, with my silly rainbow bag in my hand, watching Ruben with this girl who was entirely the opposite of me, and I felt my heart sink. He didn’t like me. It had all been in my head. How could he like me, when he could have perfect-bangs girl? And I didn’t have a purse. And I was tall but not lanky. And my hair was dark. I was just all wrong.

Just one day after I’d felt for the first time that I could be liked, I also for the first time thought that my heart could break.

And all of this, in sharp detail, flooded my memory last night, as I watched the kids dance and flirt and blush. As I saw the boys sneaking glances at the girls they liked. As I noticed the girls each watching a very specific boy whenever the boys’ group danced. As I watched the girls who quite obviously felt inadequate because there were prettier girls there who got all of the attention.

So then I shut up, and I stopped being shocked. Hey, I was eleven at one time too. Yeah, it was a long time ago, but quite obviously, I still remember it. Very well. Or all too well.